Random CTD after an hour in game - logs any use?

rjjcd · January 13, 2024

I've recently started playing SC4 again after well over a decade. Have logged several hours in the past week with no issues. Was playing stable with no issues for about an hour tonight when the game suddenly froze for a moment with audio cutting out, went back to normal for a few seconds, then crashed to desktop. Nothing in Event Viewer. Went looking to see if SC4 had any logging and found the Exception Report folder.

Is this of any use in diagnosing a possible cause? Pastebin link.

Running fully up to date Windows 11 on a Ryzen 9 7940HS, RTX 4060 / AMD 780M, 32 GB. Forced the game to run on the iGPU since it doesn't make a difference in (lack of) performance. I've added the 780M to the graphics rule and video card files. The laptop is stable in games that turn it into a space heater, so don't think it's anything hardware-related.

Using SC4 Launcher and most of the mods in the recommended mods thread. NAM, SC4fix, industry doublers, less abandonment...

Serves me right for not using the autosave feature in SC4 Launcher I guess. Was having major CTD problems with SC3k so figured I'd brave the lag of SC4 to get my city building fix, and it has been stable until now.:(

rsc204 · January 13, 2024

First and foremost, ensure you’ve the -CPUCount:1 command in the target of your shortcut. If you don’t disable multi-core use under Windows, then this is the #1 cause of random CTDs. I’ll note since you have the GoG version, this should already be present assuming you aren’t running it through GoG Galaxy. Do check this is switched on in the launcher, since it probably overrides any shortcut.

One quick test you could try is whether or not the dedicated GPU also suffers the same problem, if there is some software/hardware compatibility issue behind this, we can at least rule out the GPU if two from different brands had the same problem. Are you running a dxWrapper?, MS removed legacy DirectX support from Windows and unless your drivers can handle this themselves, it won't be able to communicate properly with the version SC4 runs upon (DirectX 7). Obviously that can't be the case for the 780M, or it wouldn't work much at all, but one possibility is that some not oft used DirectX function can not be properly processed because the driver doesn't support it properly. dxWrappers handle the conversion of calls from modern DirectX to legacy versions and are highly recommended if you are having problems that could be related to the Graphics/DirectX.

Of course we can't rule out a problem in your Plugins being behind the CTD, to rule this out you'd have to temporarily remove all your Plugins/Mods (move the folder somewhere SC4 won't see it). If you can then play for longer and do not suffer the CTDs, then it's most likely some Mod or combination of Mods is causing trouble. Although this is probably the most work to test/fix frankly.

TheMurderousCricket · January 13, 2024

I've experienced this problem in the past and can only confirm that @rsc204 is right in saying that running SC4 with multi-cores is the source of the CTD in most cases.

Since you are using the Launcher, note that you can also use an option provided there to set the game to a single-core usage.

Another thing to remember regarding the launcher... If you can, try to use the "Fullscreen" option when playing. I've learned the hard way that running SC4 in a borderless windowed mode may cause numerous issues. This includes crashes and even erasing your city in the region view upon saving. When I stopped playing in this display mode, the problems ceased.